Echoes of War: Civilian Suffering in Airstrikes

Four years ago, Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine, told us the story of Basim Razzo, whose entire family was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in Iraq. His story helped reveal how American air wars were resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths.

Analyzing thousands of pages of U.S. military reports and investigating in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, Azmat was able to gain a better understanding of why this was happening.

Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine.

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Background reading: 

• The promise was a war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. But Pentagon documents show flawed intelligence, faulty targeting, years of civilian deaths — and scant accountability.
• A trove of internal documents, combined with extensive reporting across the Middle East, reveals the tragic, disastrous failures of the U.S. military’s long-distance approach to warfare.

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